praise and shame
We could bet most reasonable people would agree that a person benefits from hearing authentic praise of their work - praise that is accurate and not exaggerated. Yet, most of those same reasonable people would not easily identify as an individual who benefits from hearing praise and wants to receive it. “People in general benefit from this, but I’m not one of them. At the least, I don’t really need it.”
In my view, this is completely shame-based. We seem to have a socialized need to de-identify with our common, even innate, responsiveness to praise. For many, to say “I'm a person who benefits from praise” is the same as saying, “I'm a person who's desperate to belong and who doesn't feel he does.” Leaders get caught up in that characterization and project this attitude onto others they lead and work with.
Leaders are often averse to giving praise because it is
complicatedly bound up with our own feelings of shame and
we feel that to suggest that somebody deserves it is to suggest that they need it, which is to suggest that they are shameful or shamed.
With this said, I think we're growing past this. Perhaps Gen Z and Alpha are doing more explicit acknowledgement of their need for and interest in praise, without shame. They can say, “I'm a person who benefits from having strengths recognized, even if I've been demonstrating them for a long time.”
A gift leaders can offer their teams is modeling the giving and receipt of praise, normalizing it and stripping it of associations with shame or questions about our fundamental worthiness. We are worthy. Enjoying praise for our strengths, needing that praise, doesn’t diminish that worthiness in any way.
-ben
